Columbia River drainage basin

What's RCBA?

The Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement was the document we signed with the Biden administration, RCBA for short.

And that document ultimately, you know, the next president could rescind it.

And that's what happened.

We've done it in the past.

And we also need our representatives, our legislators, to be on board with finding solutions because what's in place now isn't sustainable, and it's certainly not going to ensure the survival of this critical species, of this keystone species.

And just really quick, the, the, the CBA, the Columbia Basin Agreement under the Biden administration was this ...

I think of it as like a study group, but of lots of lawmakers and organizations, uh, working on the river of, of the tribes within that basin, within that stretch from the mountains of Idaho to the coastal regions.

And I know you've been on the job 12 weeks.

So my question to you is, how are you coming up to speed on salmon policy in the Columbia Basin? And then I have a follow up to that.

Yeah, you know, never take a job that you're not going to learn something from.

And by this, I mean learn an entirely new subject matter.

The Savannah River site covers about 300 square miles of flat South Carolina lowland.

And the eastern perimeter transect runs through pine scrub and managed wetland that's about as different from the Columbia River basin as terrain gets.

The air is heavier.

The soil is sandy red clay under a layer of needle litter.

places.

There were a plethora of species and subspecies in the historic Columbia Basin's dam-free rivers about which we know almost nothing today.

My river brother, the writer and sage Barry Lopez, tapped into a version of this preparedness during the 50 years he spent observing spawning Chinook salmon on Oregon's McKenzie River.

He wrote, the world of variables salmon are alert to, to which they respond, is astonishingly complex.

He's the governor of the newly incorporated Washington Territory.

He wants to end the bloodshed that has plagued the Columbia River Basin for the last eight years.

But he wants more than that.

He's pretty clear about it.

Well, what is now commonly Missoula, Montana.

And the water built up behind it and then When the Ice Age melted, all this water just flooded it down to what is now the Columbia River Basin.

And these huge...

And I'm talking... 20-meter-high boulders, they're just astronomically big, came flooding down the river basin, and now they're in all from, like, Hood River, Portland, all the way to Seaside, these huge rocks that, like, just this, you know, apocalyptic amount of water to push this rock.

Yep.

The d- the Columbia River Basin's like nowhere else I've been in the country.

And then the Olympic National Forest, I still go over there.

I'm in the Reserves, so I'll go over to Bremerton for drill.

And so you're right, maybe they're not spending the time like they used to because they're...

Well, I feel like there was a huge segment of people in like the mid-2000s that people who were enamored, at least in the, let's just say the Columbia River Basin, right? So parts of Idaho, Oregon, Washington.

Yeah.

And the people who were enamored with the fly cast ended up gravitating towards two-handed casting because when done correctly, it's just, man, it's very addictive.

Nice shot! Fetch it up, Willow! Call Willow! Right there, right there!

Today's guest is Matt Milbauer, an upland hunter, writer, artist, and podcaster based in the Columbia Basin of Washington.

Host of the Go Flush Yourself podcast and co-host of the Breaking Cover podcast, Matt stays plenty busy discussing dogs, gear, birds, literary work, and more behind a microphone.

Also, his article titled Bridge in the Basin Hun just hit mailboxes in Pheasants Forever's Super Bird Hunting issue.

I'll be, I'll be satisfied.

Um, but yeah, I want to talk about this.

Uh, you know, you said there's, there's Hungarian partridge in the Columbia basin where you live very few and far between.

Um, And so, yeah, I mean, like I said, as much as as much as you want to share about the story, I definitely don't want to give away too much of it or whatever.